Dead Dreams
by Aillanna-Took
Summary: Squal POV, this takes place a few years after the game, Seifer is dead, and Squall is basically reminiscing. Please R&R.


AN: This is a Squall POV, but basically about the DC…. My second attempt at angst. Maybe someday I'll write a happy fic, but for now I'm perfectly happy with angst.

Disclaimer: I don't own FF8 or anything. They belong to Squaresoft. All worship Squaresoft! Join or Die!

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Dead Dreams

I stare out at the cemetery, built in the old resting grounds of Balamb Garden, in which I currently wait out the winter. As I look upon the many tombstones, one particular rock catches my interest. It's not big, or flashy. Just a slab of granite stuck vertically into the ground, with a name and date scratched on its surface. The carvings have worn almost completely off due to harsh weather.

I look at the name, and it sends a chill marauding down my spine, despite the warmth of the room I sit in. Seifer Almasy. It seems so…unreal. I attended the funeral, but I didn't really want to. As I looked onto his face, cold and lifeless in the…there's no other word for it…cheap… casket, I felt a strange sense of abandonment. It wasn't supposed to end that way. Without Seifer, I was nothing. Sure, Garden thought of me as a hero, but there is no hero without an opposing force, a rival.

When they lowered the casket into the dark, cold ground that fateful, rainy day, I kept expecting to hear a faint pounding, and then everyone would stop, and Fujin would lift the lid off the casket, and Seifer would climb out, and hug everyone, and tell Fujin and Raijin a joke or something before walking away with them right behind him. It never happened. I told Rinoa later about that, and she laughed, but not a real laugh. A false laugh; one that says "I wish that were true, but it isn't….How ironic, don't you think?"

Inside, I feel that Rinoa still feels that strange, childish attraction to him. Quistis lost any small piece of teaching ability that she had before. I'll never forget the look on her face when I told her that Seifer was dead. It was like a mix of shock, disbelief, and complete confusion. After that, she just closed the door. Selphie…she kind of just…sat there. I still don't think she truly accepts that the guy who was always a "meanie" when we were five is dead.

Irvine had a similar reaction. The only person who wasn't upset with this was Zell. I told him, and he immediately went to the local bar and got stone-drunk in celebration. Fujin found him there, and beat him to a bloody pulp. He was in the infirmary for four months after that. I can't really say he didn't deserve it, either.

I offered to let Fujin and Raijin stay at Garden, but Fujin just broke my leg, and left. That was the first time in my life I'd ever seen Fujin really crying. Then Raijin broke my other leg. I didn't really enjoy staying in the infirmary with Zell, but I got to leave long before him. I know it hit Fujin and Raijin harder than anyone. They stay at the inn in Balamb now. The owner doesn't dare bother them. They've crippled three employees already.

I return my attention to the cemetery. A small figure holding a sharp-looking knife enters the cemetery, and approaches Seifer's grave. Fujin. She bends low over the stone and begins the process of renewing the name on Seifer's tombstone. I continue to watch her. After a few minutes, I look over to where Rinoa is directing the decorating team for the annual Christmas party. Everyone has practically forgotten Seifer. The Sir Seifer Almasy that once held the world in his hands at the service of the Sorceress, now left to decompose in the Balamb cemetery. 

When I look back to the cemetery, Fujin is gone. There seems to be extra writing below what was there before. I stand up and walk out, not caring to look back. I go outside, and approach the tombstone of Seifer Almasy. Written below his name, a short message is carved.

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Even in death, we follow you, Seifer, as you should follow your dreams.

A white trenchcoat flaps in the wind, hung upon the tombstone to mark the death of "one more soldier."


End file.
